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Home, community-based strategies can reduce neonatal mortality

Says study

Staff correspondent
Speakers at a press conference yesterday said home and community-based strategies can significantly reduce neonatal mortality by improving newborn care, including identification and management of newborn illnesses outside of a healthcare facility.
They said this at a press conference on ‘A study dissemination' at the Sasakawa auditorium of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR.B).
I he study was conducted by Projahnmo, a community-based newborn care intervention research project, a joint venture of Johns Hopkins University, the government of Bangladesh and a
non-government organisation Shimantik.
The study showed that home-based care strategy reduces neonatal mortality’ by 34 percent. The study was conducted at three upazilas of Sylhet district with in the time frame of 30 months starting from 2003.
This district was chosen due to highest mortality rate among Bangladesh's six divisions with poor access of health care. The project intervention was implemented diriding the three upazilas with 24 clusters on five lakh people. Population worker ratio was one for four thousand people.
The study intervention was designed into home care, community care and comparison arms. In the home care arm, the female
community health workers identified pregnant women and made two antenatal home visits to promote birth and newborn care preparedness, made potential home visits to assess newborns on the first, third and seventh days of birth and referred or treated sick neonates.
In the community care arm, birth and newborn care preparedness and care, seeking from qualified providers, were promoted solely through group sessions held by female and male community mobilisers.
In the last six months of the 30 months' interventions, neonatal mortality rates were 29.2, 45.2 and 43.5 per thousand in the home care, communit)'care and compar-ison arms respectively said,
Associate Prof of Johns Hopkins University Dr Abdullah H Baqui while presenting his study findings at the conference.
Welcoming this intervention. Director of Primary Health Care and Line Director-ESD, DGHS Dr Saleh Md Rafiq said this type of public-private partnership project would be very helpful for the government where it is failing to reach.
The government is yet to finalise a neonatal strategy, he said, adding "More than 80 percent delivery still takes place in the community."
Dr Ishtiaque A Zaman and Dr Shams El Arifeen of ICDDR.B and Programme Manager (CA and SS). DGFP and Member Secretary <»l TRC Dr Md Ashraf Ali also addressed the press conference.